AJ+ Senior Presenter Dena Takruri to be honored at Arab American Heritage Gala

The Arab American Civic Council is proud to announce that it will honor Senior Presenter at AJ+Dena Takruri during its second annual Arab American Heritage Gala, which will be held on Saturday, April 22nd at the Pacific Hills Banquet Hall in Laguna Hills, CA.

Dena Takruri is a Senior Presenter at AJ+ and one of the channel’s founding members. Many of her videos have gone viral, earning millions of views on Facebook and hundreds of thousands of shares on YouTube and Twitter. Dena’s reporting style is bold and immersive, often speaking truth to power and giving voice to those unheard. She has reported internationally on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and on Europe’s refugee crisis, where she was one of the first journalists to ever broadcast using Facebook Live. Domestically, Dena covered the 2016 presidential race, the armed occupation of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refugee, the Flint water crisis, AIPAC’s annual policy conference, the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock and ICE’s crackdown on undocumented people under Trump. She has extensively covered the #BlackLivesMatter movement and issues related to Arab and Muslim communities in the U.S.

Dena is a producer and profilee featured in the Peabody nominated series, The Secret Life of Muslims. Previously, Dena worked at HuffPost Live and Al Jazeera Arabic. She holds a BA in International Development Studies from UC Berkeley and an MA from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Dena is a Palestinian-American native of San Francisco, where she resides today.